David Stapleton

University of Melbourne, Australia

David Stapleton started his Ph.D. degree in Professor Bruce Kemp’s lab in 1992 at St. Vincent’s Institute of Medical Research (SVI) in Melbourne, Australia. Between 1992 and 1996, he was part of team that purified and cloned the AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK). In 1997, he travelled to Professor Tony Pawson’s laboratory in Toronto, Canada, to work on an Eph receptors that are important for growing nerves in the developing brain. In 2000, he returned to SVI to set up his own laboratory working on the structure and function of the AMPK regulatory subunits. This led to the identification and structure of the AMPK carbohydrate-binding module (CBM). In 2005, he moved to the Bio21 Molecular Science and Biotechnology Institute and began exploring glycogen-associated proteins in health and disease. Recently, he received an opportunity to move to the Department of Physiology within the University of Melbourne to further develop his research on glycogen in skeletal and cardiac muscle. His research specifically involves the following areas: structure and binding specificity of carbohydrate binding modules from the energy-sensor AMP-activated protein kinase in both mammals and in plants, regulation of AMPK by glycogen, understanding the regulation on glycogen branching and debranching enzymes, and regulation of the mammalian glycogen particle structure.